Tag Archives | Jesus

What do you call it when a husband beats his wife with a paddle for disobeying him? Some would say domestic abuse. These people say he’s doing God’s work.

On a pain scale of one to 10, Chelsea ranks the epidural-free birth of her child as a six. Her husband’s spankings? Those are an eight.

First, he uses his hands for “warm-up” slaps. Then comes a combination of tools based on the specific infraction. The wooden spoon is the least severe; for the worst rule-breaking—like texting while driving (“It could kill me,” Chelsea admits) or moving money between accounts without his permission—she’ll be hit with something else: a hairbrush, a paddle, or a leather strap.

But this isn’t domestic abuse, Chelsea says. This is for Jesus.

Chelsea and her husband Clint, who asked that I use only their first names, belong to a small subculture of religious couples who practice “Christian Domestic Discipline,” a lifestyle that calls for a wife to be completely submissive to her husband.

When Jonathan Talat Phillips experienced a devastating loss as a countercultural media activist, he unwittingly started on a mystical journey marked by underground ayahuasca ceremonies, kundalini awakenings, prankster spirit guides, extraterrestrial encounters at the Burning Man festival, and miraculous energy healings that reshaped his skeptical worldview. Join me as I interview Jonathan Talat Phillips, author of The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic, on The DisinfoCast with Matt Staggs.

This year Passover begins in the evening of Friday, April 6, 2012, with Easter Sunday falling on April 8, 2012. While many people celebrating the religious holidays this weekend think they know what happened in Golgotha, Israel a couple of thousand years ago, there is in fact tremendous controversy, spurred not least by a best-selling 1965 book by British Biblical scholar Hugh J. Schonfield, The Passover Plot.

Based on scholarly research into the social and religious culture in which Jesus was born, lived and died, into the source documents of the Gospels, and into other literature, Schonfield reached the following conclusions:

That Jesus was a deeply religious Jewish man, probably well-versed in the teachings of the local northern sects such as the Nazarenes and Essenes.

That growing up in Biblical Galilee he had a skeptical and somewhat rebellious relationship to the hierarchy and teachings mandated by the authorities (the Pharisees) of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Despite the fact that there’s scant evidence in the Bible that Jesus was an asshole who commanded his followers to bully gay children to death, a group of American Christian parents seem to think Christ has called upon them to act like jerks. That’s why they’re actively working against the passage of anti-bullying laws at the state level — they believe that by making repeated, ongoing cruelty illegal, lawmakers are interfering with their Jesus loving child’s right to point out that homosexuality is wrong and bad and hellbound.

“Bullying children is wrong and bad” may sound like the most basic tenet of human decency, but if you ask conservative lobbying groups like Concerned Women for America and Focus on the Family, making it a crime to taunt someone until they kill themselves is akin to interfering with religious freedom. According to AlterNet’s Katherine Stewart, conservative groups across the country have opposed various anti-bullying measures because they say outlawing bullying is akin to state endorsement of the homosexual lifestyle.

Waynesville High School in Waynesville, Ohio, threatened to suspend a student for wearing a shirt that said 'Jesus Is Not a Homophobe,' according to Lambda Legal, which filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the school on his behalf.
Last April, Maverick Couch, a gay junior, wore the shirt during the National Day of Silence, which is meant to raise awareness to anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in schools.
Couch said: “I’ve been bullied and called names, I wanted to wear the T-shirt to encourage respect for all students, gay or straight. I wish my school would help me create an accepting environment for LGBT kids, not single me out for punishment.”
However, school officials said the shirt was “indecent and sexual in nature” and told Couch to turn his shirt inside out, which he did.

Every believer has seen the videos of the Virgin Mary appearing in the form of a Cheeto or a linen stain and secretly hopes for an uncanny sign that will validate their faith — that’s why the Jesus Toaster is the perfect Christmas gift. Now anyone can have the rapturous joy of witnessing the Lord appear in their morning toast:

What if Christian theology dismissed the virgin birth and other miracles as fairy tales? What if your pastor/priest told you to flush the Ten Commandments down the toilet and instead live life to the fullest? What if Sunday service at your local church consisted in a juicy orgy? All of this could have happened had Carpocrates had his way.

Carpo … who? The lead character in our story was the leader of a second century Christian community based in the Greek islands. Back in those days, early Christians couldn’t agree on just about anything. Official Christian doctrine hadn’t been fully established yet, so an extremely wide range of opinions and teachings fell under the label of “Christianity.” The only thing they had in common was that they all thought Jesus was a cool guy.… Read the rest

In December 1945, during the tail end of the most devastating war in human history, a peasant named Mohammed Ali of the al-Samman clan stumbled upon an earthenware jar near limestone caves in the deserts of Upper Egypt. He feared an evil djin (genie) resided inside, but hoping for lost riches, he still opened the jar. To his disappointment, twelve ragged leather-bound codices fell onto the ground. He didn’t realize these 1,200 weathered pages contained a priceless treasure with dozens of lost Christian gospels that had been hidden away for 1,600 years. Mohammed carried them home to his mother, who kept warm throughout the night by feeding pages of what we now call The Nag Hammadi Library to her fireplace.

These fifty-two texts, with titles like The Gospel of Thomas, Secret James, The Gospel of Mary, The Origin of the World, The Gospel of Philip, Secret John, and The Sophia of Jesus, showed that first-through-fourth century Christianity was much more varied than previously thought, comprised of diverse sects claiming “secret knowledge” of heavenly realms.… Read the rest